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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26691034">A Patient Heart</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Carlough/pseuds/Carlough'>Carlough</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Pacific (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Introspection, M/M, Pining, Possibly Unrequited Love, it's not canon compliant but it's not NOT canon compliant</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-09-28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-09-28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 04:27:28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,441</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26691034</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Carlough/pseuds/Carlough</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Runner has always been patiently waiting for Leckie.  And he'll keep waiting, even when Leckie chooses someone else.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Robert Leckie/Bill "Hoosier" Smith, Wilbur "Runner" Conley/Robert Leckie</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>17</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>A Patient Heart</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/scramjets/gifts">scramjets</a>.</li>



    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Scramjets got me in my feelings about Runner/Leckie again (not an uncommon occurrence) and I was thinking about how Leckie and Hoosier are shown to get on each other's nerves and fandom loves shipping them, but Runner and Leckie have way more screentime and way more meaningful conversations, and fandom just ignores Runner and his love for Leckie. And then I personified that. With Runner watching Hoosier/Leckie who aren't that good for each other, and continuing to love Leckie even when Leckie, just like fandom, ignores him.</p><p>And then I wrote this in an hour. Unedited.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Runner had always been the patient sort.  It was perhaps a little ironic, for a guy with a nickname like Runner, earned from years spent in footraces and proving himself to be the fastest, but it was the truth.  Training to be the best took time and effort and more than a little patience, after all.</p><p>And Runner had patience in spades.</p><p>He’d been patient since the beginning, back when they all met at New River.  Leckie and Hoosier had been at it even back then, surly and sizing each other up, always ten seconds from whipping their dicks out and getting the ruler to measure them.  Runner had spent many days exchanging aggrieved looks with Chuckler before they waded in and tried to break up whatever argument they’d gotten into this time.</p><p>It didn’t bother Runner so much, being the peacekeeper.  He’d never been much one for conflict, which was perhaps a funny thing to say when you signed up for a war.  But there was a difference between fighting for what was right, and fighting for fighting’s sake.</p><p>Lucky and Hoosier, they fought for sport.  When things were good, there was a teasing edge to it, lips upturned and eyes sparkling, a sort of verbal sparring that was akin to a comedy routine, playing off of each other with canines flashing victoriously when they got the last word in.  It was almost fun to watch then, like sitting on the sidelines of a sporting match.  The jabs were pointed, but the blades were blunted, meant to tease but never to cut.</p><p>But when things were bad.  When food was scarce and water scarcer.  When the sky opened up for days and the world was awash in mud and rats scampering into your bed to avoid drowning on the forest floor.  When your feet were blistered and your skin burned and peeling and the word from the upper brass was more idiotic than usual.  When everyone was at their wit’s end, frustrated and sick of seeing each other and sick of eating maggots and sick of this goddamn war.</p><p>That was when things got vicious.</p><p>Leckie had this manner about him, this pride that Chuckler had once aptly compared to a wild horse.  He had an issue with authority that was rather startling for a man who had signed up for a job that would inherently put people in positions of power over him.  He was independent and bull-headed and for all of his intelligence and prose and poetry, would abruptly torpedo his whole life and career if it meant protecting his injured pride in front of an officer he felt had wronged him.</p><p>Naturally, Leckie felt that most officers had wronged him by nature of being officers.  And naturally, being a man of words, Leckie felt the need to verbalize his disdain, loudly and often.</p><p>Despite Leckie’s initial opinions of him back at camp, Hoosier was not particularly a man who enjoyed authority either.  But he was a man who understood the pecking order of the military, and more so understood that there was no use in fighting against something as deeply ingrained as the military chain of command.</p><p>And he had very, very little patience for bellyaching of most any kind, but particularly about things that were often problems of Leckie’s own creation.</p><p>When they went at it, they <em>went at it</em>.  It was painful to watch, words being lobbed at each other with just as much force as any fist.  They were cruel for the sake of cruelty, because the Japanese and the Marine Corps and the godforsaken tropical islands they were trapped on didn’t give one single fuck about their feelings, but their buddies were trapped with them and were open targets.  Runner had watched the two of them in each other’s faces, spitting and hissing the sort of too-honest insults that couldn’t be taken back with a simple apology – especially between two people who had never once heard of sucking up their pride and saying they were sorry.</p><p>They would go days afterwards where they would avoid each other, as much as you could avoid someone while sharing the same space as them.  Leckie would continue muttering pointed comments and then act as if he couldn’t see Hoosier sitting ten feet away, and Hoosier would roll his eyes and give Leckie the cold shoulder the entire time, and it would carry on like that until Chuckler got uncomfortable with their stalemate and played mediator, or they got in a firefight that scared them out of hating each other and reminded them how much they liked keeping each other alive.</p><p>It was difficult to watch.  It was perhaps even more difficult to see them keep coming together again.  They’d gravitate to each other, even when they were furious, because nothing gave them the same high as getting a rise out of each other.</p><p>And sometimes they’d come together in a flurry of hands and teeth and hissed insults and gasped curses and Runner and Chuckler and Sid would all have to pretend that they hadn’t heard it, that they had planned all along on not returning to their shared tent for the next half hour, that they hadn’t rounded a corner and unsuspectingly came upon an eyeful.</p><p>For as blatant and openly dramatic that their fights were, maybe it shouldn’t have been surprising that they did a piss-poor job of keeping themselves a secret from, well, literally anyone with eyes at this point.  It would be a minor miracle if their officers hadn’t figured it out yet, and that was likely only because they were past giving fucks about most things Lucky was doing, if it meant that he wasn’t being a pain in their asses again.</p><p>Chuckler seemed almost relieved, when they “got it out of their system,” because whether or not he had feelings about the act itself, things were always less tense in the aftermath.  They were willing to sit closer to each other, their arguments went back to taunts and mocking jibes and teasing smiles.  The integrity of their group wasn’t in jeopardy, and for the unofficial group leader, all was right with the world.</p><p>And for Runner...well, he supposed he didn’t get to have an opinion on what Leckie and Hoosier got up to in “private.”  Or at least, he doubted anyone was ever going to ask his opinion.  Whatever rollercoaster they were on had been developing since camp, and Runner didn’t imagine it would stop until the war ended or they were killed trying to win it.  He couldn’t see it surviving outside of wartime – hell, he couldn’t see those two even agreeing on whose town to meet up in, because they’d both demand the other come visit them out of principle.</p><p>Runner would have come to visit Lucky.  He’d do it gladly, without any invitation even, if he didn’t know that Lucky’s parents were short on space and wouldn’t appreciate a surprise guest.</p><p>They’d gotten along splendidly from the moment they met.  Maybe it was Runner’s history of being nimble and light on his feet, but he’d always navigated the spikes and prickles of Leckie’s shifting moods and abrasive personality with nary a misstep.  He knew how to ride out the storm of Leckie’s temper, how to hear him out and gentle him the way one might a riled horse, with calm words and half-smiles and firm hands.</p><p>Leckie never got angry at Runner the way he would at Hoosier.  Sure, he’d start sometimes, just as he was liable to turn on anyone who was nearby when he was in one of his snits.  But Runner would just watch him, patiently wait him out, and Leckie would recognize the silence and blink and realize that he was taking his frustrations out on the wrong person, one someone who cared about him and was in this shit just the same as he was, and he’d look away and drag a hand through his hair and sometimes he’d even mutter one of those rare apologies.</p><p>And Runner would make a joke, gently tease him and distract him away from the situation, and instead of a fight that left Leckie seething for days, Runner could make him laugh.</p><p>Theirs was a friendship built on words, just like Leckie and Hoosier’s, but their words were joking, kind even when they were mean.  They had a history of giving each other names, each one worse than the last, to remind of their most recent folly or embarrassment.</p><p>(And sometimes their words were borrowed sweetness, a fondly familiar <em>cobber</em> that was just foreign enough to play off in front of mixed company, even though it shared none of the mocking tones of <em>Peaches</em> and <em>Old Faithful</em>.)</p><p>Leckie was fascinating.  He was infuriating and stubborn and pessimistic and prideful to a fault, but he was also courageous and witty and talented and the most intelligent person Runner had ever met.  Sometimes he shone so brightly it was hard to watch, when he gave off sparks that could destroy those around him, threaten to burn himself into ash.  But if you watched at just the right angle, if you knew how to handle fire, he could be something beautiful and mesmerizing, something to keep you warm and safe at night.  Something to rely on, something to build your life around.</p><p>Runner could see himself building a life around Robert Leckie.</p><p>He could imagine it with a clarity so crisp and bright that it was a little painful, how deeply he desired it.  Leckie would be working for a paper – because his words would have to pay the bills somehow, while he finished the manuscript of his latest project, of course – and Runner would work doing whatever he could, in a factory or a store or whatever job needed a good pair of hands.  He wasn’t sure he’d have the brains for college, not like Leckie, but he was a hard, honest worker and he was good with his hands and he was confident he could get a job to help support them.</p><p>And people would think they were just friends, a pair of bachelors living together to save money.  Too old to live with their parents, aged by the war if not by years.  Just two good friends from the Marines, taking care of each other.</p><p>They’d be the only ones to know, except for perhaps Chuckler and Hoosier, because they couldn’t keep secrets from their friends, not where it counted.</p><p>At night they’d come together, and they’d sit on a sofa in front of a warm fire, the radio playing softly in the background.  And Leckie would be scribbling in one of his notebooks again, and Runner would sigh softly and lay his head on Leckie’s thigh and ask his well-worn question, “Read to me?”</p><p>And Leckie would sigh like he was exasperated, but there’d be a hint of a smile on his lips, and he’d reach down to card gentle fingers through Runner’s dark hair and maybe he’d quote one of those poems or plays he liked so much, or he’d start ad libbing a letter or an article, growing more and more ridiculous as he went on until Runner was giggling hysterically against the soft fabric of his nightclothes.  And on certain occasions, when they were feeling especially in love, Leckie might actually read to Runner the true words he was writing.</p><p>(Runner had listened to more than his share of “Dear Vera” letters, a few perhaps that were somewhat real and a dozen more imagined ones that were at turns wickedly inappropriate and incredibly dark.</p><p>(He lived for the day that he’d get to hear a “Dear Runner” letter.)</p><p>Then they would go to bed, tangled up in each other because there was nobody to censor them in their own home, and if there was gasping and panting in the night, it would be interspersed with laughter and teasing and words of love, words that sounded like <em>beautiful</em> and <em>beloved</em> and <em>cobber</em>, and they would fall asleep in each other’s arms because they wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.</p><p>Runner perhaps wasn’t book-smart, but he was by no means dumb.  He knew how to tell the difference between fantasy and reality.  He knew that the likelihood of his dreams coming true were about as realistic as the likelihood of the Japanese surrendering tomorrow via chorus line.</p><p>But he’d watch Leckie and Hoosier gnashing at each other’s throats and he’d think.</p><p>He’d see the way that Leckie smiled at him, <em>just</em> for him, and he’d think.</p><p>He’d examine in awe the way that they’d somehow managed to survive this long in this hell on earth, and he’d think.</p><p>If they could manage to make it out the other side of this war mostly in one piece, why couldn’t they make another miracle happen?</p><p>If they had to survive this nightmare, why shouldn’t they be able to have a fairytale ending, just like the hero in any novel?</p><p>Would they not, above anyone else, be deserving of a happily ever after?</p><p>Leckie and Hoosier were a combined entity that would burn itself out after the war, flames cooling with the balm of distance and being able to live in peaceful times, where it didn’t feel like the world itself wanted you dead.  They’d continue being friends, but the drive to take each other apart both verbally and physically just wouldn’t be there.</p><p>But Runner?  He’d get his letters from Leckie, even if he had to write a dozen times first to get a response.  He was no poet, but he’d gladly narrate every day of his life, if it let him imagine Leckie fondly rolling his eyes as he read each one.  He’d wait until Leckie’s initial awkwardness born of separation and trying to reacclimate to civilian life had passed, and then he’d carry on just as they had before.  And he’d get that invitation to visit, or he’d invite Leckie to visit him, and everything else would arrange itself in due time.  He’d wait out the bad nights, the nights where the dreams were too close and too real, and he’d traverse the tumultuous waves of Leckie’s temper and fear just as he always had.</p><p>And at the end they’d come out stronger for it, because Runner knew how to be patient, and loving, and kind.  He knew how to wait for a good thing.</p><p>He’d been waiting for a long time already.  He was good at it by now.</p><p>He could be patient, because he didn’t have any other way to be.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I'm <a href="https://armypeaches.tumblr.com/">armypeaches on Tumblr.</a></p></blockquote></div></div>
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